


Hair and a Memory

by Fujiwara_no_Seimei



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte
Genre: Hair, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-13
Updated: 2010-08-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 01:57:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fujiwara_no_Seimei/pseuds/Fujiwara_no_Seimei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mihashi's hair had grown too long.  Abe was tired of telling him to get it out of his eyes, but not tired of brushing it out of the way himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hair and a Memory

Mihashi's hair had grown too long. Abe was tired of telling him to get it out of his eyes, but not tired of brushing it out of the way himself.

He tried not to think about it, but a tiny voice in the back of his head insisted Abe knew that this was why it never got cut.

Mihashi always apologized, but never meant it.

•••

It was the spring of their second year. Abe knew that all that hair would not be comfortable when the heat of summer set in, but never suggested he cut it. In the dugout during a practice game, Abe asked Shinooka if he could borrow one of her hair elastics, and when he tied a tiny ponytail in the back of Mihashi's hair, like Hamada did sometimes, he didn't see Shinooka's smile slip and crash to the floor.

•••

Sometimes Izumi noticed. He noticed how warm Abe's smile was at his pitcher, how much softer his voice had grown. He noticed how Mihashi, nervous as ever, closed his eyes and almost sighed when Abe's fingertips brushed his forehead, setting sweat-slicked hair on top of his head while pulling a baseball cap down to secure it. Izumi didn't know if he was endeared or repulsed.

Shinooka pretended not to notice it. But Izumi knew she did too.

•••

In the summer of their second year, they won the regional tournament and were going to go to Koshien. When that win was secured with the final out, everyone on the team piled onto the pitcher, so no one saw how desperately Abe clung to Mihashi's head, fingers entwined in long, sweaty, dirty hair. No one saw him press his face into Mihashi's bangs and inhale, shuddering. But Mihashi had felt it.

And neither ever mentioned it again.

•••

Finally, at the offhanded but pointed insistence of Shinooka, Momoe demanded Mihashi trim his hair or he wouldn't start in the next game.

Izumi told Shinooka to stop being jealous and get over it. Then he offered to go with Mihashi to the barber.

Mihashi cried in the barber's chair.

•••

It had been cut too short, even in Izumi's opinion, not that he was the poster boy for short hair, or anything. But the look on Momoe's face the next day made it clear she didn't expect it to end up as short as Tajima's. Mihashi met Abe's eyes very slowly, carefully, nervously. He wasn't expecting it, either, when Abe ran a hand lovingly through what was left of it, murmuring, "It's not so bad."

•••

They graduated. Mihashi and Hanai went to Hosei and Abe and Sakaeguchi went to Keio. Tajima never went to university. Izumi and Hamada went to a lower end university, and didn't play baseball. Formally.

•••

Izumi caught glimpses of Mihashi in sports magazines, and called him one day, after reading an article about how he was getting offers from pro teams. Over lunch, Izumi asked Mihashi how Abe was doing, and was positively shocked when he said he had no idea. Especially since Mihashi's hair was longer than ever.

•••

Despite Hamada's relentless teasing about the preoccupation, Izumi called Sakaeguchi a few days later, because he was too perplexed by Mihashi to focus on anything else. Sakaeguchi said Abe had a girlfriend, had her for a few months now, and that she was very nice. Then he repeated, "What do you mean does Mihashi know?"

Mihashi signed on with the Seibu Lions. He became hugely successful.

•••

High School was far away now, and though Izumi had not attended the wedding, part of him was not surprised to hear about Abe's divorce through the grapevine. Hamada was pleased to be able to tease Izumi about his obsession with Mihashi's love life again. Izumi always threatened, halfheartedly, to move out when he got teased, but they both knew he didn't mean it, because the sex was too good.

•••

When Mihashi arrived at the door of Abe's apartment, he stood there, too scared to knock for a good ten minutes. Finally he did, and he fell into Abe's arms, and it had been so _long_ and Abe looked so _old_, but never so happy since the day they went to Koshien together.

When they pulled away from their first embrace in seventeen years, Abe ran his hands through Mihashi's hair with no hiding of his desperation. He shook, and Mihashi sighed, and Abe whispered, verblessly, "_Your hair._"

Mihashi nodded, face hot and hands trembling. His fists clutched the back of Abe's tee shirt.

"It's not so bad...is, it?"

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt word should be obvious.


End file.
